were touchdowns and were ads were fumbles. >> mariana rajoymeetsangelamerkel.>>> plus, upcoming elections that sylvia berlusconi has called his last great electoral and political battle. >>> the power to split up uk banks if they fail to -- activity. george osborne is expected to give the bank of england the responsibility to make sure banks are involved in these activities. you have to love the extended analogy. watch the george osborne speech live here at 10:30 local for those of you here with us in the uk. in the meantime, there are more charges at the top over at barclay's. last night, the bank's financial chief and financial chief announced their leaving. tomorrow, barclay's ceo anthony jenkins will face questions in parliament over banking standards and next week he will present his long awaited plans for transforming the bank. >>> and a number of stories about rbs also in the weekend press. the sunday times reporting the bank will announce a 500 pound settlement with u.s. and uk regulators later this week. rbs will cover the bonus pools after a warning from the government

, yes, strutting its stuff, but how luxury brands are faring. we talk toceoangelaaarons.we'll hear from her later in the show. >>> and taking the positive u.s. housing numbers from the nhab numbers. we'll be in new york with analysis at 11:45 cet. >> the italian election race is heating up. there is less than a week before voters head to the polls. comedian turns politician beppe grillo, in fact, is owes closing in on sylvia berlusconi for second place. official polls can no longer be published. the private polls seen by reuter s suggest mario monti may, in fact b with be something of a spoiler. >> and the election largely coming down to five key candidates. the front-runner is bersani. he's the leader of the center left pd party, calling for growth measures alongside monte's plan. sylvia berlusconi is threatening to make a political comeback despite corruption scandals. we've mentioned the comedian beppe grillo. at the same time, the former caretaker mario monti, he's been struggling to gain ground in his first ever political campaign. and then last, not necessarily least, there's

. mario monti says germanchancellorangelamerkeldoesn't want italy's center left party to win the elections this weekend. the outgoing prime minister said merkel feared a consolidation of parties from the left, especially in an election year for her. the german leader has so far refrained from commenting on the election. what does all of this mean? julia joins us now from milan. julia, i have to confess, i don't really understand what monti's point is here. >> well, you know, we have to give it a bit of context, kelly. this was in response to something berlusconi said about the possibility that mario monti had already signed an agreement with the democratic left party, the democracy party mr. bersani with the agreement with angela merkel. i don't think mario monti has hidden the fact that he's concerned about the influence, particularly the power of the union on the democratic party. if we look on the german side, the foreign minister said what they want ultimately is a party that's going to continue with the reforms, that's going to continue with the fiscal consolidation. i'm

the party received illegal payments between '97 and 2008 and he received the supportfromangelamerkelsay that the spanish government, she had confidence in the spanish government to tackle economic crisis by implementing more economic reforms. that being said, she didn't say more especially on the corruption case as was reported a few days ago. there is a reaction, there was a strong reaction in the bond market. today is a bit more quiet. but for sure, mariano rajoy lost the opposition not only in spain, but also at the european level. it's going to be more difficult for him to perhaps negotiate more time to reduce the spanish deficit and perhaps more difficult for him to ask for insensitive measures to stimulate the economy at the european level. there's a trend on twitter tweeting for the -- the contractions for rajoy reject and that's on the right very well the situation here in spain. since the case, the corruption case was reported by the newspaper a few days ago. rajoy lost six points in the opinion polls in approval ratings. he is now amid 24%. that being said, the leader, the soc

today, i think if you've been listeningtoangelamerkelto david cameron himself and francois hollande this week, the indication is that perhaps we shouldn't be as optimistic as jean-claude juncker would have us believe, but someone has to fly the flag for europe and we like our posturing in europe. overall, what rewe looking at? germany, the uk, the nordic european countries are fighting for cuts, real term cuts in this whereas italy and france would rather have it held steady. even within that, the battle lines aren't clear. the uk and sweden in particular, trying to protect their all important rebates. we've got italy saying that their contribution overall is too great and, of course, as i just mentioned, france very concerned about the agricultural spending that contributes around 40% of the entire eu budget. so as usual, we get a of comments and a lot of the european leaders come to this working out, just how they can negotiate and is walk away, flying their individual flag and saying, hey, i came out with what i asked. but, you know, ultimately, what we've seen in the past is tha

is napolitano is supposed to be meetingwithangelamerkelfor lunch today, i believe. >> no clowning around at that lunch. >> well done. i wish i were a fly on the wall for that one. >> it does make things extremely awkward ahead of that meeting. >> there's nothing quite like, you know, all the stereotypes that people talk about. there's nothing quite like when somebody comes out and proves stereo typical -- >> confirms that sense, contactually. >> mario draghi indicated his intention to keep the euro going, saying we are far from having an exit in mind. >> at this point in time, economic policy remains cognitive because we are far from being in a situation where we can actually start having an exit in mind. we see that inflationary expectations are very well anchored. if anything, inflation is going down. and we foresee for next year a significantly an inflation which is significantly lower than 2%. >> if we're going to see inflation significantly below 2%, it's being suggested there's room for them to do more, isn't he? >> possibly. i think for the most, the ecb, i think everything more o